Forums > Social Discussion > Homeopathic Medicine

Posted: 12th May 2005
No medical advise from me, just hugs and sympathy.



I hope you get better really soon, handicaps that interfere with poi are the worst kind.

-James

"How do you know if you're happy or sad without a mask? Or angry? Or ready for dessert?"

Posted: 12th May 2005
My mum is a hoemeopath, works for me, there atre some intresting studies around, contradictory of course, from years of obsderving thease types of practicioners id say its more to do with the practitioner than anything else, but I have had heomeopathy work incredibly well for me.

im still openminded, about everything.

muchos hugs for the problems tho, I have a friend (actually two ) with the same sorta thing, and its nasty,

T

This is a post by tom, all spelling is deleberate
-><- Kallisti

Posted: 12th May 2005
I think you should have a good talk with your mum and explain that what she's doing is really upsetting for you, and that, though you appreciate she's trying to help, you'd prefer her to communicate with you first before buying you treatments.

That way you can maybe both work together to investigate the options that are out there and, if there's something that looks good, she can help out with the money saved by her not buying treatments you don't want.

Homeopathy, like many alternative treatments, is considered scientifically dubious, due to the fact that the 'active' ingredient is diluted to an extent where, scientifically speaking, it is at zero level.

Nevertheless, some people swear by such treatments.

I suspect that, when they do work, there are quite complex factors coming into play.

The state of ones mind has a greater effect on ones health/body than orthodox medicine acknowledges; equally important it determines how you cope and deal with illness.

What is illness for some, is normal health for others.

Be aware that, of the alternative treatments, not all are expensive; for example, some christian churches offer free spiritual healing (obviously you've got to use your judgement- some of these are sincere, others are completely deranged )

Other free options could be meditation- most established buddhist groups are fairly down-to-earth.

A visit to your local library would be a good idea, it'll have sections on both orthodox medicine, alternative medicine, and meditation.

I've spent much of my life researching spiritual systems and alternative health concepts; the big conclusion that I came to is that, as someone who's straddled between two worlds (I'm very logical, as well as being creative/artistic) it's difficult to reconcile the two- I'm both gullible and cynical.

So I looked for stuff that works in all possible scenarios, stuff that's valid whether the world is a scientific mass of matter and energy, or whether the world is some mystical dream with loads of hidden stuff going on in the background.

Freedom from negativity works in all scenarios- it may possibly heal you, and, if it doesn't, then, despite being ill you'll enjoy your life more and achieve more.

As for alternative health systems- if you're inclined, then try some out, but watch out for the out-and-out conmen (and conwomen).

IMO, if it costs a fortune, it's almost certainly dodgy.

Don't go to extremes, have a fairly good diet, good thoughts, and good times.

Lastly, IMO, if you use recreational drugs, seriously consider stopping.

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!

Posted: 12th May 2005
Quote from Futurama:
Man1: I've got a degree in homeopathic medicine!
Man2: You've got a degree in baloney.

Posted: 12th May 2005
thanks for the hugs guys!

Its good to hear that it works for some people and i'd like to think that it would work for me but i just can get my head around how actually does work. I want to try it for my mothers sake, she wants to help so badly and when i say i don't want it she gets upset and doesn't understand why i don't want to do it.

I wouldn't feel so bad about it if it was just the money issue (my folks are minted so money isnt a big deal) but its how much she worries and how much time she puts into looking for new treatments. I hate the fact that people are taking advantage of her when she is only trying to do the best for me. She does discuss the treatments with me but i didn't find out how expensive the tablets were until they wer delivered and i tried to send them back and they wouldn't refund them. I felt sick when i saw how much they cost.

I am very interested in the holistic approach to health, treating the body and the mind because they both influence each other. I have many alternatively minded friends who have supported me greatly mentally/physicalyl/spiritually in many 'alternative' ways. I have found a lot of this very good for my mind but nothing has really changed with my physical symptoms. saying that, a positive mind definately helps, I used to get really down and feel sorry for myself but i soon realised that it was only making things worse. Now, most people i meet don't realise i'm ill because i come across as so positive, it definately makes everything alot easier to cope with.

thanks for the input guys and i would love to hear from more people who have had experience with homeopathic treatments.

Posted: 12th May 2005
Maybe you should post more specific details about your condition; some people here may have been through similar things.

"You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it."

--MAJOR KORGO KORGAR,
"Last of The Lancers"
AFC 32


Educate your self in the Hazards of Fire Breathing STAY SAFE!

Posted: 12th May 2005
My sister's body decided it hated the cartilage in her knee, and thus mounted an immune response against it (it's a type of rhumetoid arthritis). Consequently, she could'nt bend her leg because of the inflammatory response. She went on an elimination diet, a 7 day fast (she did drink fruit juice and water). The swelling in her leg went down a litle bit. THen she tried acupuncture, which seemed to have some affect. The swelling has gradually gone down and now she can walk properly, and occasionally can shake her booty on the dance floor!
As a student of science I'm incredibly suspicious of homeopathy, and other alternative treatments, but I've come round on acupuncture!

Big hugs for star poi, i hiope things get better soon as possible!
-H

"If you light a man a fire he will be warm for the night. Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life!"

Posted: 12th May 2005
I've been through the usual old hippie round of alternatives:
have occasionally found homeopathy useful. My now 25 yr old son's whooping cough and excema were treated with it when he was 2 years old: both disappeared within a week and he has never had a cold or rash since...) The homeopath was a locally born Chinese chap who was also a straight up professor/specialist in pediatrics. He considered differing approaches like 'the wings of a bird: better to have two". He of course used Western medicine, but also homeopathy in some limited cases.
(though we both agreed we 'couldn't get our heads around how it could possibly work' he said empirically it can) He also referred to traditional Chinese medical practioners when he thought that was the best option. He said that diagnosing and prescribing with TCM was as complex than Western Medicine and that it required a properly trained practioner to do it properly so he didn't directly prescribe. (At that time acupuncture was starting to be accepted as useful and GPs were going off to do weekend courses.... worse than useless if they then thought they could 'practice' it.)
I am now lucky enough to live in a place where there are very good TCM people, and I use it regularly for myself and family and to very good effect. It is a very old system and great for those 'non-specific' ailments.

I also took a homeopathic remedy after three months of non-stop nausea when pregnant another time. It cleared up that day and never returned. Overall though I prefer TCM to homeopathy because of the diagnosistics Also I have run case management supervision groups for alternative practitioners and I've seen a lot of weird justifications and endless fiddling with 'healing crises' and 'going backwards through the symptoms' and all that, where 'oops this isn't working' might have been more honest. With TCM I just get better really fast and that's it. So long as I dont mind drinking some pretty strange brews! (no rhino horn...)

One interesting story: a friend of mine was very keen on bush flower remedies: made in the same way as homeopathy with 'vibration' rather than material substance being the supposed active principle. He had a dog bitten by ticks. (Our local variety are often lethal to dogs and make people including me extremely ill). The dog was paralysed/frothing at the mouth etc and he got some 'remedy' down the dog's throat. An hour later the dog was fine. Beats me!!! I don't think dogs are vulnerable to the placebo effect. On the other hand, there was no equal weight/equal bitten 'control' dog to 'test' against. So maybe it was just a bloody resilient canine....

.....Can't juggle balls but I sure as hell can juggle details....

Posted: 13th May 2005
hey Starpoi,

most of the complimentary therapies here have controling bodies (in some cases more than one which can get confusing), but they will all recomend competent safe practitioners. There are also many schools, of which many offer cheap student based consultation with senior staff/therapists to back them up. these are generally subsidised by the colleges and so far I have had really good experiences with them from both sides of the white coat.

It is often also really hard to find a therapist and therapy that works for you. They may be able to help aleviate the symptoms, thereby making it easier to deal with or help your own inate ability to heal.

As one wheel dave said, talk with your mum and research this together

*are those my feet?!*

Posted: 13th May 2005
Hi Starpoi!

I'm a scientist and therefore very very very suspicious of lots of alternative stuff. But a while ago I read an article (can't find it, and it was in German anyways, otherwise I'd link to it) about homeopathic medicine. It was about a study that was carried out to prove it didn't work, and the people doing it had to admit that there seemed to be effects they hadn't expected and that can hardly be explained by placebo effects. They are apparently something like the popes of anti-homeopathy, so for them to publish it has effects is quite a serious thing!

So, I'm not sure about what to say about your problem, I'll go with the other people who recommend talking about it with your mum. I'd always go for the "school medicine" first, but then they don't know what's wrong with you... I hope you'll be better soon

"vices are like genitals - most are ugly to behold, and yet we find that our own are dear to us."
(G.W. Dahlquist)

Owner of Dragosani's left half

Posted: 13th May 2005
I've had this serios allergic reaction to cold this winter and homeopathy helped.

go for it=)

when it gets colder that -25, you don't really care

Posted: 13th May 2005
I'm glad to see that you are using the term 'homeopathic' correctly, because it indicates that you are educating yourself about the alternatives available.

There are some studies that show homeopathic remedies for a number of problems to be effective, but many of these are flawed in design or interpretation. There is certainly a large placebo effect. I personally don't put a heck of a lot of faith in homeopathy per se.

However, there are many other so-called 'complimentary and alternative medicine' (CAM) therapies that are helpful, particularly in providing symptomatic relief where Western medicine fails.

In your case, it sounds as if you are suffering from neuropathic pain. Accupuncture may be helpful in this situation. There aren't studies to prove it, but the anecdotes I've heard are a heck of a lot more convincing than those for homeopathy. For reasons that pass our understanding, accupuncture does seem to work for neuropathic pain and we have no idea how it works or why it works. But it seems to.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is an ancient field and a fair number of the herbs they use are medicinal. Of course, watch out for ma-huang (ephedra) as it can cause heart issues.

So you might try to move in that direction.

On the other hand, there is the issue of your mother. I think it's important to make it known to her that you do appreciate her help and that you do want to get better, but you might express to her that you would like it if she listened a bit more to YOUR desires and allowed you to be your own person.

Being the parent of a child with chronic medical conditions is a very challenging thing, both from a logistical and emotional point of view. Whether the parents had any control over the development of the condition, it's normal for parents to feel a great deal of guilt over this and this can lead to a number of very odd behaviors on the part of parents. Trust me, working in pediatrics you see QUITE an array of odd reactions.

Good luck in managing your pain AND your mother.

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura

Posted: 13th May 2005
homeopathy, acupuncture and reflexology have all helped my family, but like the general opinion i duno how squeezing a toe can cure tinitus (altho my muv swears it did!) im no expert but perhaps it's a bit of a case of trial and error cos everybody's different and what works for some doesn'tt work for others.

::: I LiKe pLeAsUrE sPiKeD wItH pAiN - MuSiC iS mY aErOpLaNe :::

Posted: 13th May 2005
thanks everyone!

I've been researching and reading the responses in this thread and there seems to be a general opinion from people that have tried it that it works but not really sure how!

I really thought the whole thing was basically a placebo but the practicioner that i saw said that it didn't matter if i believed in it or not, it would still work. He explained it as the body only needing a tiny trigger to regain its balance that will lead to overall health. I want to believe it will work and i think i might try it as i have tried everything else and nothing has really made any difference.

I did go to two different traditional chinese specialists and they both said that they didn't think they would be able to help me and if they could it would take a very very very long time and they didn't think that it was worth trying. I was very suprised with this, i though they would have a lot more to offer. Maybe i was going to the wrong people.

I have acupuncture regularly on my back and it works really well for my back. The muscles in my back often spasm and the needle gets put right into the muscle and it just seems to 'twang(!)' back to normal, its a wierd but very pain relieving feeling. I have had acupuncture on my arms and legs but to no affect.

To be more specific about my condition
- i have very painful joints in my arms and legs
- the muscles in my limbs ache whenever i have been active
- the pain in my legs is worsened by walking and standing
- the pain i get when i am walking/standing/using my arms is nothing to the pain that i get later on in the day. By evening, even if i haven't done much, i am in agony.
- if i do nothing all day, my arms and legs get very stiff and are painful to use
- if i do some moderate activity the pain is bad but it keeps my joints from getting stiff. I do a little bit a poi/staff to keep myself active everyday. Its easier to battle through the pain if you're doing something fun
- although i don't bruise easily when i am knocked or bump into something i am a lot more sensitive to the pain and a little bump will cause pain for about an hour...not great when trying to learn new poi moves!!

I have had the pain in my wrists for 8 years but the other symptoms only really came in october last year

i have been tested for
rhuematism
arthritis
lupis
inflamation
thoracic outlet sysndrome
deficiences
and lots more that i can't remember off the top of my head.

the doctors are very good at finding out what i don't have, they just can't work out what is actually wrong!

Thanks for all the input every one. I really appreciate it. I was getting really upset last night when i was writing the initial post but now after a good nights sleep and reading all the posts i think i'm thinking about it all a lot more clearly

Posted: 13th May 2005
Here is an interesting article that i found whilst researching. Its rather lengthy..you were warned!!

As if by magic 26 May 2001
From New Scientist Print Edition. Jane Seymour
Jane Seymour is a health journalist living in London

AS SOON as his best friend moved away, the eight-year-old boy started complaining of pains in his legs. The family doctor couldn't work it out, so he referred the case to the hospital. The neurologists checked him out and couldn't find anything. And so the boy was referred to yet another specialist.

This time the doctor was less interested in the boy's legs than in what he liked to eat and drink, how he slept and so on. Did he have any unusual habits? "He hates buttons," his mother said. "Ever since he was a baby he's refused to wear clothes with buttons." The doctor consulted his texts then prescribed some medicine. It worked. At the next appointment the boy walked into the clinic without any pain in his legs, and he was wearing a cardigan with buttons.

The magic potion was a homeopathic remedy, jalapa, based on the root of the Mexican shrub Exogonium purga. And it was prescribed by Bob Leckridge, associate specialist at Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital. In common with all homeopaths, he has a rather different approach from the majority of the medical profession.

Leckridge starts a consultation by making a study of a patient's habits, character, likes and dislikes. He uses this information to put together a "picture" of the patient. He then looks up possible remedies in a "repertory"—a list of symptoms and their associated remedies. All these remedies have been tested in a process called proving, in which homeopaths record the symptoms they produce in healthy people. Leckridge then cross-checks the possible remedies in a homeopathic formulary to find out which one produces a picture closest to the patient's. This is what is prescribed.

Homeopaths believe their remedies have a similar effect to vaccination. By using a substance that produces symptoms similar to the ones they're trying to cure, they trigger a healing response in the body. As laid down at the end of the 18th century by homeopathy's founder, German physician Samuel Hahnemann, "like cures like".

Hahnemann came up with his theory after noticing that the malaria drug quinine actually produced symptoms very similar to malaria when given to a healthy person. He then started testing other drugs to see what symptoms they produced. In the hope of making the drugs safer, he started diluting them. To his surprise, he found that the effects produced grew stronger the more he diluted the solution.

Today, homeopathic remedies are dissolved in ethanol to produce the "mother tincture". This is then repeatedly diluted, starting with 1 part tincture to 99 parts of a mixture of water and ethanol, then 1 part of the resulting solution to another 99 parts, and so on. Solutions are usually diluted six or 30 times, but up to 200 dilutions can be performed. Each time the remedy is diluted it is vigorously shaken, or "succussed".

The original ingredients are usually natural substances. Some, called nosodes, come from matter produced by the disease itself, such as tissue from an infected gland. Some are straight from the "eye of newt" recipe book—black Cuban spider, anal gland of skunk—but others are more familiar. Red onion has a "remedy picture" that includes watery eyes and sneezing. Homeopaths prescribe it for some allergies. Nux vomica, the poison nut, causes irritability, aversion to noise, bad breath and nausea. Not surprisingly, it's a popular hangover remedy.

So are homeopaths quacks? If so, millions of people have been taken in and Britain's National Health Service supports them in their credulity. There are five NHS homeopathic centres. Glasgow's alone sees 2500 new patients a year. Between them, British consumers spend more than £20 million a year on over-the-counter homeopathic remedies. It's difficult to say how many practitioners there are in Britain, as anyone can call themselves a homeopath, but a recent University of Exeter report found that 2696 people were members of homeopathic practitioner organisations.

Yet despite the popularity of homeopathy, practitioners have yet to convince the majority of scientists that there is anything in it other than the placebo effect.

Because homeopathy really shouldn't work. There are two big problems. First, the key ingredient in any homeopathic remedy is diluted to such an extent that the chance of finding even a single molecule of the original substance in a dose is vanishingly small. Secondly, the dose-response relationship—that is, the more you take, the more powerful the response—is apparently reversed in homeopathy. The more dilute the remedy, the stronger the effect.

Being asked to believe two impossible things before breakfast can make people angry. Even with the general public stampeding to their doors, homeopaths are fighting a rearguard action against those who say they're charlatans. Although happy to continue practising as long as their patients keep coming, homeopaths would dearly love a scientific explanation of their art.

So it was with some enthusiasm that the homeopathic community greeted a 1988 paper in Nature (vol 333, p 816) by immunologist Jacques Benveniste, then based at INSERM, the French national institute for medical research. He suggested that anti-immunoglobulin E serum diluted way past the point at which it's reasonable to expect a single molecule of the original substance to be present still produces a biological effect. From this came the idea that water has memory—that it could somehow "remember" molecules that had once been dissolved in it and act as if they were still there.

Unfortunately, his results could not be replicated despite the efforts of several teams—most famously a team assembled by Nature which included magician and arch-sceptic James Randi. Randi's foundation has since offered a $1 million prize for anyone who can invent a reproducible test that can tell the difference between a homeopathic preparation and a control. It remains unclaimed.

Since what has come to be known as the Benveniste affair, scientific attention has concentrated on statistical reviews of reputable clinical trials. Most notably, Klaus Linde of the Centre for Complementary Medicine Research at the Technical University of Munich led an analysis of 89 homeopathic trials. Published in The Lancet in 1997 (vol 350, p 834), the study concluded that the trial results were "not compatible with the hypothesis that the clinical effects of homeopathy are completely due to placebo". A follow-up paper in 1998 in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (vol 4, p 371) went further, concluding that "individualised homeopathy has an effect over placebo". Not quite a ringing endorsement—but not a dismissal either.

Of course, some people think grown-ups shouldn't be wasting their time looking for something that shouldn't be there. Jan Vandenbroucke, professor of clinical epidemiology at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, says reviews of trials are pointless as any positive results can't be interpreted within our current understanding. "Nothing can be ruled out in principle, but it seems quite a remote possibility that an infinite dilution may have chemical activity," he says. "Empirical data do not necessarily overrule theory—when data are totally incompatible with accepted scientific theory that has been shown to work, theory overrules empirical data."

Telling homeopaths not to be so silly was also, until recently, a pastime of Madeleine Ennis, professor of immunopharmacology at Queen's University, Belfast. She did it so often that she was asked to join a multi-centre European study to look at the effects of "highly dilute" solutions—well into the homeopathic range—of histamine on human basophils.

Basophils are white blood cells involved in inflammation. They make many biologically active substances, including histamine, which they release in response to an attack. Once histamine has been released, it has a negative-feedback effect on basophils, stopping them from releasing any more.

Four separate research centres were sent some test tubes of pure water and some of histamine at homeopathic dilutions. They weren't told which contained pure water and which the homeopathically prepared solution. The results? All four centres found that the ultra-dilute solutions inhibited histamine release from basophils, just like histamine itself, and the results were statistically significant at three of the centres.

Ennis was not best pleased. She had set out to destroy the central tenet of homeopathy but had ended up shoring it up. Her reluctant conclusion? "Despite my fundamental reservations against the science of homeopathy, the results compel me to suspend my disbelief and start searching for a rational explanation for our findings." The Belfast team's results are due to be published in Inflammation Research this summer.

Ennis says that if her results are real we may have to rewrite physics and chemistry. But Peter Fisher, director of research at the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital, proffers a less radical explanation. "I think it's to do with changes in the structure of the water," he says. "Somehow information is stored in water." He says the act of preparing a homeopathic remedy imprints this information on the water. Ordinary, untreated water has no structure.

"The reason why people find [homeopathy] so challenging is that we are used to thinking about pharmacology in molecular terms," Fisher continues. "If you take homeopathic medicine to be analysed, a pharmacologist would say it's water and ethanol and sugar, and that's true. But if you take a floppy disc to a chemist he will say it is ferric oxide and vinyl. The information is stored in physical form: the alignment of the dipoles of ferric oxide." We shouldn't write off homeopathy simply because the dose-response relationship is reversed, he adds—we just don't know enough about ultra-dilute solutions.

Although resigned to practising without an accepted explanation, a scientific model would at last enable homeopaths to discover what works best. At the moment, there's a distinct lack of agreement about best practice. Different homeopathy schools, countries and practitioners perform their art in different ways. Many homeopaths tell you not to eat or drink strong flavours when taking their remedies. Others think that's ludicrous. Some favour combination remedies. Others prefer a single one. Who's right? No one knows. Clearly, some more robust trials are needed if scientists are to stop shouting "rubbish!" whenever the "h word" is mentioned.

But then, as a scientifically trained friend commented after taking an irritatingly successful homeopathic treatment for hayfever: "It's witchcraft. But it's bloody effective witchcraft."

Posted: 14th May 2005
Eight year old that doesn't like buttons and complaigns about random pains.... I suspect the kid was having the doctor on. Bit of a biased article in any case, there are many, many cases of people not getting better after trying homeopathic medicine but they don't get reported (cos they would make boring stories). Think I'll remain skeptical for now.

According to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Dynamics, we may already be making love right now...

Posted: 15th May 2005

Written by: starpoi

---

Here is an interesting article that i found whilst researching. Its rather lengthy..you were warned!!

---

Thanks for sharing that article starpoi. It was an interesting read, though I usually find myself tiptoeing on the wary side.

Once again, so sorry to hear about what you're going through. Here's hoping the research and your other efforts pay off eventually.

Posted: 16th May 2005
This thread is very interesting. I'm doing my dissertation next year on the uses of CAMs in Palliative care.

My ex went for homeopathy when he had a rare form of excema that was also infected with a secondary virus. He had really nasty weeping sores over most of his body. None of the creams and potions from the doctors worked, he even tried creams with steroids in them.

Homeopathy was a last resort, my boyfriend was not at all convinced but it did do the trick. After a month the sores were just faint marks. It also had a positive effect on his athsma.

A year after he started learning the more advanced breathing techniques in Yoga, and cured his athsma entirely. He hasn't had an asthma attack or used inhalers for about 3 years now.

Be open-minded, but exercise caution too. There's a lot of intelligent people out there who do advocate the use of alternative and complementary medicines because they've seen something in it, even if we can't explain how it all works.

Idolized by Aurinoko

Take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind....

Bob Dylan

Posted: 16th May 2005
'Unfortunately, his results could not be replicated despite the efforts of several teams—most famously a team assembled by Nature which included magician and arch-sceptic James Randi. Randi's foundation has since offered a $1 million prize for anyone who can invent a reproducible test that can tell the difference between a homeopathic preparation and a control. It remains unclaimed.'

Now that's the bit which gets me. If there's a difference capable of making an impact, it should be detectable. My worry then becomes whether the improvement in health is due to a placebo, or some other confounding factors. I'm not suggesting that this is the case, but - in the absence of evidence to the contrary - I don't see any particularly good reason to think that it isn't.

ture na sig

Posted: 16th May 2005
I think the placebo effect is the most interesting one in the whole of medicine.

.....Can't juggle balls but I sure as hell can juggle details....

Posted: 16th May 2005
Thanks again for all the input guys.

I'm feeling a lot more positive now than when i started this thread. I was having a bad day and feeling rather sorry for myself which doesn't happen often. Thankfully i snapped out of it and now i'm back to my usual positive attitude..never underestimate the power of positive thinking. It does wonders for the mind!

It seems to me that although no one can really prove that homeopathy works or how it works, it has helped some people and no-one has been able to completely disprove it. I'm going to give it a go seeing as there is nothing really to loose except a bit of money. If there is the chance that it will help my condition even a tiny bit then it will be worth it.

https://www.marar.co.uk
This is the practicioner that i am seeing and there is a lot of information his site if anyone is interested.

He's started me off with a tincture that i spray into my mouth twice a day and a sugar based tablet to take before bed. I'm going to keep a diary of any changes that i notice and i'll keep posting here.

Posted: 16th May 2005
Yes, please let us know how it goes! I hope it works for you.

Here's something I found in New Scientist about Ennis's work trying to disprove homeopathy...

'In her most recent paper, Ennis describes how her team looked at the effects of ultra-dilute solutions of histamine on human white blood cells involved in inflammation. These "basophils" release histamine when the cells are under attack. Once released, the histamine stops them releasing any more. The study, replicated in four different labs, found that homeopathic solutions - so dilute that they didn't contain a single histamine molecule - worked just like histamine. Ennis might not be happy with the homeopath's claims, but she admits that an effect cannot be ruled out.'

It also says no large, randomised, placebo-controlled clinical trials have proved that it works, but it is still a mystery.

Idolized by Aurinoko

Take me disappearing through the smoke rings of my mind....

Bob Dylan

Posted: 17th May 2005
hey Starpoi, im really sorry i didnt get to input on this subject earlier. i was born with the umbilicul (doubt thats spelt right) cord wrapped round my head twice. i had to be put on breathing support straight away from birth and it left me with severe asthma. at night i couldnt breathe at all and eating/drinking anything with dairy in flared me up but my mum started me on homeopathic medicine, not wanting to pump her baby full of chemicals. it helped imensely and although i only have mild asthma now, whenever im not feeling great my mum looks up what homeopathic medicine to give me. im not saying that it works for everyone and all cases but im glad you decided to give it a try. really hope it helps you, big luck and hugs

Posted: 17th May 2005
Actually here in Britain the BBC televised a scientifically rigourous test of homeopathy to try an claim a million dollar challenge for doing so. The test was a repeat of Ennis's experiment and Ennis herself was interviewed in the program. The test met all scientific standards and the result was that the homeopathic solutions gave a result no better than water (which presumably they were). My memory is foggy but I think Ennis accepted that her results were probably the result of sloppy scientific practices.

This leads me to a very real concern. How many of the drugs that we take today don't actually work?

Glad to hear that your asthma improved Lilune, but it was probably not because of homeopathic medicine. Many childhood conditions get better when people get older (who remembers acne?) . It's a testament to the tremendous healing powers that the human body possesses.

According to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Dynamics, we may already be making love right now...

Posted: 17th May 2005
ooh thanks for that link, its quite interesting.

I am definately still skeptical but yesterday i couldn't even get out of bed so if there is a chance that it could help i've got to give it a go. its my own fault that i was so bad yesterday, hours of spinny fun in exeter was too tempting!

I think that a lot of drugs out there often only work as a placebo but what is the harm in that? if it works it works!

Posted: 17th May 2005
Well I used western antihystamines for 10 years for hayfever and it never worked, I took Arsen Alb. (homeopathic medicine) for 2 summers and it helps a great deal.

Western science isn't all that advanced IMO. For example we have almost no idea how the brain and mind actually works.

It has been suggested that the level of belief a scientist has in a certain result can have a physical effect on those results. So a believer does rigorous scientific tests and finds a positive impact on homeopathy, a non believer finds a negative result. Why? Because homeopathy works on a much finer level than the rather crude western equivalents.

So you could say that homeopathy is just a placebo. But Arsen Alb seems to have a far different effect on me to Arnica, which seemed to heal a cracked rib very quickly.

I'll quote from a rather interesting New scientist article: which can be found at https://www.newscientist.com/channel/space/mg18524911.600

4 Belfast homeopathy results

MADELEINE Ennis, a pharmacologist at Queen's University, Belfast, was the scourge of homeopathy. She railed against its claims that a chemical remedy could be diluted to the point where a sample was unlikely to contain a single molecule of anything but water, and yet still have a healing effect. Until, that is, she set out to prove once and for all that homeopathy was bunkum.

In her most recent paper, Ennis describes how her team looked at the effects of ultra-dilute solutions of histamine on human white blood cells involved in inflammation. These "basophils" release histamine when the cells are under attack. Once released, the histamine stops them releasing any more. The study, replicated in four different labs, found that homeopathic solutions - so dilute that they probably didn't contain a single histamine molecule - worked just like histamine. Ennis might not be happy with the homeopaths' claims, but she admits that an effect cannot be ruled out.

So how could it happen? Homeopaths prepare their remedies by dissolving things like charcoal, deadly nightshade or spider venom in ethanol, and then diluting this "mother tincture" in water again and again. No matter what the level of dilution, homeopaths claim, the original remedy leaves some kind of imprint on the water molecules. Thus, however dilute the solution becomes, it is still imbued with the properties of the remedy.

You can understand why Ennis remains sceptical. And it remains true that no homeopathic remedy has ever been shown to work in a large randomised placebo-controlled clinical trial. But the Belfast study (Inflammation Research, vol 53, p 181) suggests that something is going on. "We are," Ennis says in her paper, "unable to explain our findings and are reporting them to encourage others to investigate this phenomenon." If the results turn out to be real, she says, the implications are profound: we may have to rewrite physics and chemistry.

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So the implications of homeopathic remedies actually working would "rewrite physics and chemistry". That's why there is such strong belief that it doesn't work.

However I believe that homeopathy works on a quantum level, of which we are only just beginning to comprehend. Give it 100, or 200 years and our ancient medicine will seem absolutely barbaric compared to the modern day homeopathic (read quantum) equivalents. IMO

2 Things to bare in mind.

1) If you fill your body full of toxins then homeopathy won't work very well. Cut out the macdonalds.

2) If you come into contact with any peppermint (like toothpaste) then homeopathy won't work very well. You need to use different toothpaste and not drink peppermint tea whilst on homeopatic medicine.

Spherculism ~:~ The Act of becoming Spherculish.

Posted: 18th May 2005
guess you could be right bout the growing out of childhood conditions as it were. think it was helped as well by hours of back patting from my mum in the middle of the night im sure i watched that programme too but i dont remember wat conclusions were made.
i still believe that homeopathy does help in some cases although i think its effects may be hindered by scepticism as i cant see a medicine doing the body much help if the mind's fighting against it

Posted: 18th May 2005

Written by: spherculist

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However I believe that homeopathy works on a quantum level, of which we are only just beginning to comprehend. Give it 100, or 200 years and our ancient medicine will seem absolutely barbaric compared to the modern day homeopathic (read quantum) equivalents. IMO

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You can't just toss in "oh it works on a quantum level" as an explaination. Quantum effects are too small and short-lived to do something like cure a disease.

And you missed the rebuttal to Ennis's work posted two comments above yours

"Moo," said the happy cow.

Posted: 18th May 2005
Yes I can spiralx because that's what i believe. lol

Western science doesn't like homeopathy because the medicine is diluted to such a degree that there is most likely not a single atom of the active ingredient in the medicine. So under current thinking that's absurd.

However. My argument is this. We have absolutely no idea how memory in our minds works. We are mainly made up of water, a fundamental element. Now is it not possible that a chemical in the mind can store a bit of memory in the water surrounding it? To western physics and chemisty this is not yet possible. But in the future, who knows.

So the argument for homeopathy is that whilst the original active molecules are no longer in the medicine, the memory of them is. If it were proved that water has memory it would fundamentally change physics, chemistry and biology.

Now think about this. We exist as 4 dimensional beings. Our science can only get a really clear picture of 4 dimensions. However physics admits the possibility for many more dimensions than this. My view is that homeopathy, the memory and the mind all exist outside of those rigid 4 dimensions that we inhabit. This is why I talk of it in terms of quantum, as energy.

"Quantum effects are too small and short-lived to do something like cure a disease" ~ how can you say that? At what level does a virus affect your body? How small are they? What does it matter how small packets of energy are? Consider how small a molecule is, and consider the immense ammount of energy that binds it together. Consider that it is widely believed that Gravity seems such a weak force because it acts partly in other dimensions which we cannot see.

Now it seems fair to say that the 'Placebo Effect' exists. So if a sugar pill can produce some positive effects, whose to say that you cannot magnify those effects under certain homeopathic conditions.

One last point. There is an ancient saying from the east "Everything vibrates, nothing is at rest". That eastern 'mystical' saying dates back at least 6,000 years but it is only within the last few hundred years that western medicine has proved that Yes, everything does vibrate and that it is currently impossible to absolutely stop anything from vibrating.

Belief Equals Reality

m

Spherculism ~:~ The Act of becoming Spherculish.

Posted: 18th May 2005
Cutting out McDonalds is fantastic advice already. Drinking plenty of water and fresh fruit and vegetables as well as getting plenty of exercise are far better for you than any medicine, conventional or otherwise.

Written by: spherculist

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So the implications of homeopathic remedies actually working would "rewrite physics and chemistry". That's why there is such strong belief that it doesn't work.

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You mean like how everything was rewritten after the discovery of x-rays, or relativity, or quanta, or evolution? Science is not afraid to overturn centurys held suppositions. The suggestion that there is some kind of conspiracy against homeopaths by scientist is completly absurd.

According to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Dynamics, we may already be making love right now...